Youngman invests in plant to counter overseas competition

Rising costs and growing competition from Eastern Europe and China have forced the Youngman Group to rethink its largely manual manufacturing methods.

UK based Youngman Group, is a supplier of working at height products and has recently invested £2.5 million in state-of-the-art, automated manufacturing technology at its plant in Maldon, Essex.

The investment allows Youngman to manufacture economically in the UK, rather than outsource labour intensive processes overseas. Youngman's production engineers identified laser cutting and robotic welding as the optimum areas for improvement and approached ABB, to develop a turnkey solution. Youngman says the new equipment will allow it to "compete rigorously against imports from lower cost economies, whilst aiding flexible production and reducing stockholding."

Youngman Group's managing director Paul Bentley said, "We recognised that we needed to plan for the future as it was clear that costs were continuing to rise and the company was facing cheaper competition from both European and Chinese manufacturers. We are confident that this initial investment will help secure the future of both the company and its employees, with the added benefit of enabling the business to compete on a global basis.

"We are committed to our vision of growing the company in a very competitive market and we believe this can be achieved by continued investment in state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities."

Youngman's range of XBoSS scissors for low-level access is currently manufactured in China - Access International is awaiting a response from Youngman as to whether the manufacture of these will be bought in-house.